Once again, sad news has surfaced regarding an early champion of the roleplaying hobby – Cyclopeatron reports that J. Eric Holmes, author of the first D&D “blue box” set, has passed away at 80 years old. A former associate professor of neurology at the University of Southern California School of Medicine, Holmes was also a fantasy and science fiction author who was well known to fans of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In the early days of RPGs, Holmes had several articles in The Dragon (or Dragon Magazine to you and me), and wrote the book Fantasy Role Playing Games – Dungeons, Dragons and Adventures in Fantasy Gaming (see his Wikipedia page for the list).